Comparison of a Single-Item Borg Scale with the JRPD Scale for Detecting Subjects Exposed to Injurious Work Activities in Military Men with Non-Specific Low Back Pain

One of the main causes of chronic non-specific low back pain is inappropriate working conditions, high repetition of one activity or work heaviness. An appropriate, accurate, inexpensive and easy assessment tools is necessary for measuring intensity of exposure to injurious work activities, Identify individuals at risk and using appropriate treatment. The aim of this study is to compare the single-item Borg scale with JRPD scale to identify individuals at risk of exposure to injurious work activities in chronic non-specific LBP. In this cross-sectional survey study, 92 subjects with non-specific low back pain by mean age of 29.16 (SD= ± 8.55) years and 93 healthy subjects by mean age of 26.80 (SD= ± 9.17) years and matched of work time, age and type of service with subjects with non-specific low back pain were selected by simple non-probability method. Single-item Borg scale and JRPD scale were used to assess the intensity of injurious work activities. Considering JRPD scale as a criterion scale, the sensitivity rate of 82% and specificity rate of 28% was obtained for single-item Borg scale at the moderate threshold. While the severe threshold for this scale, sensitivity and specificity rate were 25% and 85%, respectively. Also, the results showed that both single-item Borg scale and JRPD scale has significant ability to classify subjects with non-specific low back pain which are exposed or not exposed to injurious work ability (P<0.001). The single-item Borg scale has high sensitivity and low specificity at the moderate threshold and above and high specificity and low sensitivity at severe threshold to identify individuals Exposed to injurious work activities in military with chronic non-specific LBP.